I've picked up a few more print magazines that tested the E-3. Here's
a summary of the conclusions:
FOCUS (NL)
- considerable improvement over the E-1
- excellent ergonomics, great build quality, splash and dust proof
- important extras are effective IS and LiveView, but even more so
are the great image quality and smooth operation.
- very suitable for professional use, yielding images of corresponding quality.
Image quality: 9 (out of 10)
Focusing: 8.5
Metering: 8.5
White balance: 8.5
LCD display: 9
Write speed: 8
flash effectivity at 6.5 metres: 8
price/quality: 9
bonus: 9
Overall: 8.6 (= Super / 5 star rating)
PF (Professionele Fotografie) (NL)
Ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the image quality. Despite
scepsis about the FourThirds system Olympus proves to be able to
continuously improve image quality with each new generation of dSLRs.
Sure, there is noise from ISO 400 up, but very acceptable. All this
makes the E-3 a worthy competitor to the Canon 40D and the Nikon D300.
Foto Magazin (DE)
This German magazine has raved about the E-1 (top rating when it came
out) and also about the Digital Zuikos. In its January issue it tests
the E-3 against the competition.
Canon 40D Nikon D300 Oly E-3 Sony a700 Fuji S5 Pro
image q. 76% 79% 71% 80% 72%
speed 69% 65% 65% 66% 56%
functions 85% 92% 96% 87% 80%
operation 80% 83% 82% 78% 85%
Overall 77% 79% 76% 79% 72%
Some interesting measurements:
Dynamic range (in F-stops) at ISO:
100 9.1 8.7 8.3 8.6 9.2
200 9.1 8.6 8.0 8.9 8.9
400 9.0 8.5 8.0 8.6 8.7
800 8.8 8.6 7.6 8.6 8.6
1600 8.4 8.2 6.9 8.6 8.6
3200 7.6 7.5 6.0 7.7 7.7
Resolution OTOH (uncompressed image in kByte):
100 21381 19562 21817 21003 17368
200 21225 17643 21238 20273 16208
400 20101 17414 20591 19845 16152
800 17333 15251 18251 19871 16577
1600 13653 11094 15663 15302 11930
3200 12549 10184 12923 12993 10390
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